I promised I'd get back to Head On strapped! Sorry for the long delay, but this is my first opportunity to be at a computer and not doing work in all that time.
Having had some time to reflect, I agree with the the majority of what you say (and I'm pleased to say was getting most of it whilst watching the film, although you're much better at expressing it than me). I think the main difference is just that the film didn't grab me in quite the way it did you (and many others) and I guess that just comes down to unpredictable personal preference. Broken Wings really did grab me, so I'd be interested to see if it does it for you or not.
strapped for cash said:
I wasn't thinking specifically about the scenes set in Istanbul, but about the film more generally and the characters' instincts for self-destruction, though both Cahit and Sibel ultimately become more responsible and less self-destructive, despite ending the film apart.
In an odd way it's a cathartic relationship with (in my view) subtle character arcs. If I've one criticism, at least with regard to plausibility, it's that Cahit's jail term seemed rather short.
Yes, I liked the nihilistic first half of the film, and in many ways would have been more happy with a film that remained there, as not only was there plenty of character arc there, I felt it was a lot subtler than what came in Istanbul. This is probably a reflection of how much time proportionally was spent in Germany.
The cathartic relationship is the very heart of the film in my view. I felt it was entirely convincing in the way their hardness was broken down by the other and they came to love each other. Clearly, I felt, they could not have grown into what they did (reformed alcoholic, caring mother) without that relationship as a basis
I recall he served somehwere in the region of five years for his offence. If it appeases you at all, that's not unrealistic! There were several potential reasons why (in this country) that would have been mansalughter not murder. As well as provocation, the main reason would be he probably didn't have an intention to kill or cause serious injury. A one blow manslaughter would probably lead to a sentence of 4-5 years here, so he'd have served substantially less here.
I grew up with a very multicultural set of friends and I can identify with many of the cultural issues depicted. Obviously the title refers to a collision of Turkish and Northern European cultures; and as such deals with the encounter of religious patriarchy and Western liberalism.
For me, the depiction was very frank and rang very true with my experiences as a white British male who became close friends with people from diverse cultural backgrounds. The clash of cultures described above is both geographical/cultural and generational. And I don't think the film takes a judgemental stance, but rather seeks to explore some of the resulting tensions by looking at the Turkish-German experience.
I felt there was a bit in the way of stereotypes: the violent brother, the card-playing, brothel-frequenting family friends in Istanbul. To be fair, though, the brother provided plot points for the female lead (not least the scene where she runs from him in the street) and the card players enabled the male lead to distinguish himself from them with his attitude of 'why don't you **** your own wives?' I suppose not every character action can have sufficient background for it to be legitimised.
I thought Sibel's final decision made complete sense. While she loved Cahit, Sibel prioritised her child's welfare over someone who had cleaned up his act, but wasn't the child's father, and had a history of instability and nihilistic behaviour.
I agree it did, it was the rational decision. My problem with it was that this was a very personal film, we got to know a small number of characters very well, even intimately. We understood why they made a variety of decisions earlier in the film, mostly bad ones. We hadn't then been shown what Sibel had gone through after her rape such that she personally came to that rational decision. We're left to make assumptions about the influences she has been affected by such that she is now making these more sensible / rational / culturally normal decisions.
In fact, I liked the film so much because the ending felt entirely right, to me. While a part of me wished they'd end the film together (I was invested in the characters enough to switch off the critical/analytical part of my brain, which doesn't happen often), I also felt that Sibel made the right decision, however difficult.
Again, I'm not sure we had enough information to know that it was the right decision for her. We'd never seen the husband. Whilst he clearly had money, maybe he had an unhealthy emotional hold over a formerly / currently vulnerable woman? I'd say there's still a degree of emotional investment there to conclude she has personally got a happy ending, even if it isn't the fairytale ending of the two leads getting together.
Perhaps the film's greatest achievement is the extent to which viewers empathised with characters from "other" cultural backgrounds (have a read of Amazon customer reviews).
In this regard the film cuts across cultural divisions and deals with universal human experiences, in a way that seeks to foster understanding, without resorting to platitudes or suggesting a problem-free multicultural/Diasporic experience. In other words, I think it's a more progressive text than first appears.
I agree with that.
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